There is such a thing as an offseason
I have received some emails asking where my latest post is. Am I running? What’s my next race? Did you do a marathon before breakfast?
Truth is, running and I broke up for a bit.
Going 64 miles at the Boulder 100 made me quite happy. It is the farthest I have ever traveled on foot in a day and the people at the event were incredibly awesome. The reason I had to stop weighed on chest heavily.
Literally.
I called off the race at mile 64 due to some chest strains. It felt like a pulled chest muscle that kept contracting and making it hard to take a full breath. This hadn’t even happened in Leadville at 12,000 feet, so it was a bit new. There was also the new piece of yawning for the previous 15 miles. Paranoia does start to kick in and I wondered if I was running out of air.
I spent a month not running out of pure fear. Then a friend referred a cardiologist to visit. Not any average cardiologist, but one that has completed Leadville 100, Hard Rock 100, and Grand Canyon Rim-Rim-Rim. We could skip past the “stop running to fix your problem” discussion and look for solutions. He did an EKG, listened to my heart, and asked me health history questions.
At the end of it all, no real diagnosis. Normally, he said, would say rest and go forth. However, long distance runners know when they’re body is not right. He ordered more tests including echocardiogram, cardiac stress test, bloodwork, and wearing a heart rate monitor 24 hours a day.
Sounds fun.
While there, I peppered him with questions about training, Hard Rock, recovery, and pushing through. Yes, I basically got my health insurance to pay for a coaching session.
A week later I decided to not do the follow-up tests. Call me stupid, as most do, but I had my own self-diagnosis: I strained my heart.
20 miles of week training is not ideal for 64 miles of running. I knew it, but still wanted to see how far I could go anyway. I have a plethora of reasons why I didn’t train more:
– Started a new job
– 4 kids don’t care about my training needs
– Busy with consulting work still
– Recovering from Leadville
– Behind on all email fronts
I’m rebuilding my base and finding more creative ways to get quality runs in along with adding cross-training now. One could say I’m getting smarter about how I go about this raising a family, working more than full-time, and training for the hardest ultramarathons in the country.
What I really need to be is more consistent. This starts with writing down a plan and hitting it. I’m going to be training with a couple more people which will also help. A massage now and then will probably help too.
Definitely.
